Anguera, J.A., Volponi, J.J., Simon, A.J. et al. Integrated cognitive and physical fitness training enhances attention abilities in older adults. npj Aging 8, 12 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41514-022-00093-y.
The discovery could lead to potential future targeted therapies and treatments for this brain disorder.
Researchers have found two novel genes that increase an individual’s risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease (AD). This disorder is the leading cause of dementia and has an estimated heritability —genetic factor causing variation in the population, or an inherited trait— of 70%.
Digicomphoto/iStock.
Summary: Researchers have identified two new genes, ATP8B4 and ABCA1, that are implicated in Alzheimer’s disease. The genes impact the brain’s immune system and cholesterol processing, leading to an increased risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease.
Source: Cardiff University.
Two new genes that raise a person’s risk of developing Alzheimer’s Disease have been discovered by researchers.
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The ability to link mind and machine has long been the realm of science fiction, but now improvements in our understanding may allow us to network brain to computer in the near future. Companies like Neurolink have begun to explore how to link our neurons to machine, and we’ll explore now such neural interfaces might function and how they might change our lives.
Neurolink Paper, “An integrated brain-machine interface platform with thousands of channels”: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/703801v1
This new way to diagnose schizophrenia, epilepsy, Alzheimer’s disease and autism spectrum disorder could help improve mental health. We often think of fingerprints as the tiny ridges, whorls and arched patterns on the tip of each finger. They are heralded as special markers of human identity, even more individualized than DNA.
Physical differences in the brains of people with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and those who don’t have the condition could help diagnosis.
A vaccine (DCVax-L), trialed at King’s College Hospital and other centers around the world, using patients’ immune cells to target brain cancer can extend survival by many months or, in some cases, years, the final unblinded results from a phase 3 clinical trial has shown. The final results were published on Thursday, November 17 in JAMA Oncology.
This is the first time in 17 years that such significant outcomes have been achieved in a phase 3 trial for a systemic treatment in newly diagnosed glioblastoma, and the first time in 27 years that any treatment has been shown to extend survival in recurrent glioblastoma.
The vaccine is created for each patient individually by isolating specific immune cells, known as dendritic cells, from their blood. These cells are then primed with biomarkers from a sample of the patient’s tumor. When the vaccine containing the cells is injected back into the patient, it shares that information so that the body’s entire immune system recognizes and attacks the target.
The stimulations were critical for their learning. Separate experiments with DishBrain without any electrical feedback performed far worse.
Game On
The study is a proof of concept that neurons in a dish can be a sophisticated learning machine, and even exhibit signs of sentience and intelligence, said Kagan. That’s not to say they’re conscious—rather, they have the ability to adapt to a goal when “embodied” into a virtual environment.
In recent years, a growing number of scientific studies have backed an alarming hypothesis: Alzheimer’s disease isn’t just a disease, it’s an infection.
While the exact mechanisms of this infection are something researchers are still trying to isolate, numerous studies suggest the deadly spread of Alzheimer’s goes way beyond what we used to think.
One such study, published in 2019, suggested what could be one of the most definitive leads yet for a bacterial culprit behind Alzheimer’s, and it comes from a somewhat unexpected quarter: gum disease.
High-Risk, High-Payoff Bio-Research For National Security Challenges — Dr. David A. Markowitz, Ph.D., IARPA
Dr. David A. Markowitz, Ph.D. (https://www.markowitz.bio/) is a Program Manager at the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA — https://www.iarpa.gov/) which is an organization that invests in high-risk, high-payoff research programs to tackle some of the most difficult challenges of the agencies and disciplines in the U.S. Intelligence Community (IC).
